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Holocene hydro-climatic change and effects on carbon accumulation inferred from a peat bog in the Attawapiskat River watershed, Hudson Bay Lowlands, Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2012

Joan Bunbury*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3
Sarah A. Finkelstein
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3
Jörg Bollmann
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Toronto, 22 Russell Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3B1
*
Corresponding author. Fax: + 1 416 946 3886. Email Address:bunburyj@geog.utoronto.ca, finkelstein@geog.utoronto.ca, bollmann@geology.utoronto.ca

Abstract

Multiple proxies from a 319-cm peat core collected from the Hudson Bay Lowlands, northern Ontario, Canada were analyzed to determine how carbon accumulation has varied as a function of paleohydrology and paleoclimate. Testate amoeba assemblages, analysis of peat composition and humification, and a pollen record from a nearby lake suggest that isostatic rebound and climate may have influenced peatland growth and carbon dynamics over the past 6700 cal yr BP. Long-term apparent rates of carbon accumulation ranged between 8.1 and 36.7 g C m− 2 yr− 1 (average = 18.9 g C m− 2 yr− 1). The highest carbon accumulation estimates were recorded prior to 5400 cal yr BP when a fen existed at this site, however following the fen-to-bog transition carbon accumulation stabilized. Carbon accumulation remained relatively constant through the Neoglacial period after 2400 cal yr BP when pollen-based paleoclimate reconstructions from a nearby lake (McAndrews et al., 1982) and reconstructions of the depth to the water table derived from testate amoeba data suggest a wetter climate. More carbon accumulated per unit time between 1000 and 600 cal yr BP, coinciding in part with the Medieval Climate Anomaly.

Type
Articles
Copyright
University of Washington

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